Talismans of Spirit and Faith

Broken!

A myriad of fast-moving vitreous vessels pours off the accumulation zone onto the combiner belts in an unending stream. With seconds to spare, how do you spot the single broken bottle amid thousands of its intact fellows, before it zips around the corner?

With your ears, of course!

A broken bottle sounds different than a structurally sound bottle, standing out against a din of virtually identical clinking noises. (Ear protection required, of course, because it is literally deafening.) After that, it takes but a keen eye. Yet your eye better be keen: Those busted buggers can still be very sneaky, with just one little piece broken out!

Other times it's just the ratty ass-end of a bottle going down the line, sans top, which is easy to spot, along with sundry other bits. No, it's those nearly-whole individuals who are the toughest to spot and appear almost... normal. Until they get to the filler, that is, where my coworker asserts, "That will hold... not even an ounce of beer!"

It's just part of the job at a beverage (in this case, alcoholic) company.

Below: A nice happy factory churning out pallets of beer and cider, in packaging of all colors

Southern-style Feast

Potus Retrospect

Being in online witch-oriented groups is interesting. In exploring posts, one capers about atwixt anything from, "I had this dream, can you help me interpret it?" to, "Check out this pentacle I made!" to, "How do I hex my ex?"

Now and then someone asks, "I'm making my first book of shadows. Does anyone have any good ideas, or feel like sharing theirs?"

It's a good chance to share what my Potions book of shadows looks like, why it's so damn awesome, and why I miss working on it. I have so many entries to make!

I love this stuff. It looks right out of one of Snape's workbooks, if not quite on as sophisticated a level. Let us not forget it was the inspiration of Snape and his famous book of doctored formulae that led me to create Potus and its equally impressive, thick-spined fellow tomes in the first place.

I posted this photo to illustrate one use of collage in handwritten books: In this case, a label from a bag of tea of the kind I used to sell at the apothecary. I highly doubt Snape would tolerate the addition of such foofery, but that is where he and I differ!

A Bouquet of Liquid Delights

The clock approached three a.m. last night as I finished preparing my first batch of lilac syrup, pouring the simple sugar syrup over the tiny, sweetly delicate-scented flowers. At midnight, I'd gone out on a neighborhood lilac foraging run up 62nd Street, since lilac season is so short and ours at home were already past prime. Now I had a pint of lilac blooms of various breeds, or enough for half the recipe.

I've been on an infused oil tack lately, but I haven't ever done much in the way of syrups. Time for that to change! They're not only easy, they're delicious, and can be highly medicinal. I've got a new horehound plant in the backyard whose bitterness all but demands a syrup preparation. Some herbs, especially woody ones, can't merely be steeped overnight to infuse a syrup, and will instead require an alcohol extraction. But with fresh floral syrups so easy to prepare, I can see myself making many more in the coming days!

Today is hazy and balmy, nearly eighty degrees, and I'm enjoying just being home and out in the sun. Tonight will be a time for more indoor arts, crafts, and writing, but for the moment I'm savoring the ambiance of our garden haven, since so much of my life currently is nocturnal (though I am also giving thanks for plenty in the bank, for once!).

My lilac syrup steeped overnight, and how beautiful the color is! Even before stirring, it was a rich mix of gold, orange and mauve. After I gave it a few twirls, the color from a few blueberries I added infused the whole mixture, turning it a deep warm plum. I'll leave it for one more night for extra flavor, then strain it tomorrow --- on Mother's Day, it so happens. The woman who posted the lilac syrup is a prolific and seemingly loving mother, and while I can't either call my mother anymore or engage my own motherhood yet in the literal sense, I can embrace the day to discover, celebrate and cultivate my nurturing, motherlike abilities.

But what else can I make on such a day? Hot weather begs a glass of fresh sun tea, and I remembered I have dried hibiscus. I gave it a jump start with still-hot tea water in the stove kettle, and the color deepened wonderfully! We've also been instructed to take a lot of Vitamin C lately. A spoonful if ginger juice added to a glass of this will make a lovely early summer tonic.

Gorgeous! The tea turned out super-tart but still very tasty.

This is a good time of year to celebrate abundance. Like talismans of fortune, the round seedpods of this "money flower" can be used to decorate altars. We have some growing in our yard. Looking like tiny flat envelopes, wallets or coin purses, these seedpods are in fact made to capitalize on wind power:

Update:

I liked my lilac syrup so much that I turned my refrigerated leftover hibiscus tea into syrup as well. It is very much "da bomb"; in other words, delicious. Sweet and tart all at once.
On a less happy note, thanks to my long work hours I did not manage to tend my wisteria infused oil frequently enough, with either heating or fresh flowers, aaand it molded. Drat. Back to square one again! I think I'll stick with the heated infused method this time; the long way is just too dodgy if your material is even slightly damp.

9 Million Lives

It just goes to show, even hardcore fans can learn new things.

Take, for instance, these people who seemingly have nothing better to do than analyze the Harry Potter stories well enough to break them down on a calendar day-by-day basis. Or who pore over the official Potterpedia pages, or whatever, memorizing the canonical facts and dates released by the author and franchise. I may love Snape dearly, but not only am I franchise-resistant after a certain point, I also have better things to do!

Which means I only just learned that the series' major final battle, and thus the death of Severus Snape, occurred the day before my birthday. As in, bloody hell!

So I was seventeen, basically; but it would take another magical and significant eleven years before I got into a certain rather difficult phase of my life, and we know what happened then.

Snape reincarnated.

He has since reincarnated many millions of times --- in cosplayers, in fan fics, in art and poetry, in handcrafted objects of a potion-related or Snapeish nature, and likely in at least a few other people who have him on some kind of makeshift altar in lieu of a folk saint. Severus Snape is partly the reason why I have three-inch leather bound books and cauldrons on my shelves. He's partly what helped bring magic, real magic, back into my life after Mom's death and especially rent payments had sapped most of the reasons for living out of me.

As his influence does in my own life after gaining a toehold there, Snape only subsides, to rise again, but never truly dies. Archetypes exist for a reason, and his is so powerful it can't be killed. It just keeps lurking, somewhere out of sight, in one of those Occluded corners of my mind . . .

Until it's time for my spirit to learn another lesson, when he comes prowling and flouncing into the limelight again.

Expelliarmus!